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gale was breaking also. By the time that breakfast was over there was a sensible diminution in the force of the wind, and by noon it cleared away sufficiently overhead to enable me to get an observation, not a particularly good one certainly--the sea was running far too high for that; but it enabled me to ascertain that we were at least sixty miles to the southward of Staten. About four p.m. I got a very much better observation for my longitude, and I found by it that our drift had not been anything like so great as I had calculated it would be. This I thought might possibly arise from our being in a weather-setting current. There was still rather too much of both wind and sea to make us disposed to get under way that night, but we managed to get the craft up to the buoy of our floating-anchor, which we weighed and let go again with five fathoms of buoy-rope. This was to prevent as much as possible any further drift to leeward, and to take full advantage of the current, the existence of which we suspected. Next morning, however, the weather had so far moderated that, tired of our long inaction, we resolved to make a start once more, so shaking the reefs out of the trysail, and rigging our bowsprit out far enough to set a small jib, we got our floating-anchor in, and stood away to the southward and westward, with the wind out from about west-nor'-west. CHAPTER TEN. CHASED BY PIRATES. The weather now rapidly became finer, and the ocean, no longer lashed into fury by the breath of the tempest, subsided once more into long regular undulations. The wind hauled gradually more round from the northward too, and blew warm and balmy; a most welcome change after the raw and chilly weather we had lately experienced. We once more cracked on sail upon the little _Water Lily_; and on the morning following that upon which we filled away upon our course, finding by observation that we were well clear of the Cape, and that we had plenty of room even should the wind once more back round from the westward, we hauled close-up, and stood away on a nor'-west-and-by- westerly course. Nothing of importance occurred for more than a week. The weather continued settled, and the glass stood high; the wind was out at about north, and sufficiently moderate to permit of our carrying our jib- headed topsail; and day after day we flew forward upon our course, seldom making less than ten knots in the hour, and occasionally
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